Looking For Lizzie: The True Story of an Ohio Madam, Her Sporting Life and Hidden Legacy

A family secret hinted at long ago, leads an amateur genealogist to uncover a 19th-century scandal centered on her 2nd great-grandmother. Rural Ohio is the unexpected setting for a 30-year crime spree, where Madam Lizzie Rogers-Lape-Huffman-Larzelere-DeWitt-DeWitt-Veon-Shetler-France lived life large. Born in pre-Civil War Kentucky, she retired from the sporting life in Chicago, resurfacing with executive zeal in Ohio cities and towns such as Columbus, Dayton, Lima, Akron, Cuyahoga Falls, Canton, Mt. Gilead, Norwalk, Shelby, Stow and Marion. In Marion, her disreputable establishment, The White Pigeon saloon and adjacent house of ill repute, were frequented by a young Warren G. Harding. She may not have changed the course of Presidential history, but Lizzie set the train careening. A simple tale of a woman franchiser in a man's market, Lizzie's story of con, cunning and charm upends preconceptions about exploitation, entrepreneurship and powerful women in early America.

"Debra Lape's 'Looking for Lizzie' is a magnificent and subversive study in Americana, part of our history that has been too long hidden away, now restored to us in all of its ambiguous glory. If you love the Ohio novels of Dawn Powell, if you want to experience America with all of the challenges that it presented to an ambitious 19th century woman, this will be a revelation."
Tim Page - Pulitzer Prize-winning critic, editor and biographer

"I loved this story! Resolute gumshoe Debra Lape has unearthed an arousing tale of an ill-famed Midwest madam of long ago who just happened to be perched high on her family tree. Lape tells all, as she amazes and delights with brassy characters and a stirring familial tale with lessons for today."
Chip Bishop - Author of "The Lion and the Journalist" and "Quentin and Flora" Softcover [Illustrated], March 1, 2014 Amazon.com

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Author: Debra Lape
Publisher: Createspace Independent Publishing Platform
Published: 01/02/2014
Pages: 284
Binding Type: Paperback
Weight: 1.09lbs
Size: 10.00h x 7.00w x 0.60d
ISBN: 9781492733409

Review Citation(s):
Kirkus Reviews 01/01/0001

About the Author
Author Debra Lape is a business graduate of Cleveland State University and controller at TES Engineering, an engineering consulting firm in Cleveland, Ohio. Her 40-year quest to discover the secret life of her great-great-grandmother was two parts amateur genealogy and one part pure obsession. An Akron, Ohio, native, she and her husband Claude and son Perry live in Westlake, Ohio.

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